


Hecate Finds the Crossroads

by kaulayau



Series: Bright Red/Silver Dust (Last Words of a Shooting Star) [4]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, was it a change in heart or a premonition?, we shall see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 08:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14565273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaulayau/pseuds/kaulayau
Summary: Congratulations, you're a prophet.





	Hecate Finds the Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> How am I going to order this series? Should I do it chronologically, or like — yeah? I'll figure it out. Thank you for reading!

“Tony.”

He lies. Of course he lies. A lowered morale means a lowered chance of survival for most patients — yes, this surgery is relatively risk-free — yes, this remission will last long — yes, this medication will be a cure — but — not this. He didn’t lie about this. He swears. He swears on his life, on this power, on everything he has ever — _fourteen million, six hundred and five_ — he _swears,_ he has seen everything there is to be seen — witnessed every moment, every mistake — yes, he has lied before — there is room to lie in a factor so big — but why now?

It’s a cycle. Fourteen million, six hundred and five — and more. On and on and on until his consciousness decides to settle on an outcome — but somewhere, in the vast sea of time, he’s still at the mercy of Dormammu — somewhere, he hasn’t even been born — somewhere, he is already dead and rotting — and naturally, there are his decisions, and the decisions of everyone else on Earth, and everyone else off it, everywhere, eternal — there are trillions of universes, and in those, trillions more — _infinity_ —

Even if he comes back, it still feels like dying. He has died seven million, one hundred four thousand and twenty-three different ways — in this instance alone. There must be more. But Tony Stark — doesn’t believe him. No one really trusts their doctor. No one really trusts the surgeon with the knife.

Fourteen million, six hundred and five. Somewhere else, the number is greater. Somewhere else, they might have a chance — _more_ of a chance —

“It was the only way,” he says, but the weight of the moon and six thousand, three hundred and two different sins have already chosen on the shoulders of this man, _one_ man — and Tony Stark doesn’t believe him.

What if he _is_ lying? He has lost count of all his actions. He doesn’t know — anymore. Fourteen million, six hundred and five — and up and on — it’s easy to miss something. It’s easy to forget. He isn’t a god, after all — but — he wonders if he’s immortal. It’s certainly possible. After the quantity of what he’s seen — the choices he has to make — no, this _isn’t_ the only way, it can’t be — what if there _is_ no way — but — but every path brings — he doesn’t _know_ , he’s like the rest of them, he’s just a — there is a cycle, turning and turning until nothing is left —

Is this what he’s supposed to be doing? Is this the right thing? _Primum non nocere_ , says the Hippocratic Oath. _First, do no harm._ Has he ever kept that promise? In the scheme of space and time and life and death — in the scheme of infinity — does it _matter?_

One more death is nothing to him.


End file.
